She awoke to silence.
Not the peaceful kind that sings with birdsong and breeze—but the heavy, unnatural stillness of something watching, unseen.
The sky was still dark—just before dawn. Mist curled low along the forest floor, threading between the roots like cautious fingers. A fire had burned here once. Not long ago. The blackened circle of soot and scattered wood sat at the center of a clearing… and she lay just beyond it, curled beneath a moth-bitten cloak, her arms wrapped tight around a carved wooden totem.
Her eyes opened slowly.
Emerald.
Sharp.
Confused.
She sat up.
Her heart pounded. Her mouth was dry. She blinked as if trying to force the world into focus, but the fog didn't clear.
She looked down at her hands. Pale. Calloused. A ring of bark wrapped around one wrist, fused to the skin. A green glow pulsed faintly from it—alive.
A whisper flickered through her mind:
"Where… am I?"
No answer came.
No memory followed.
Just a blank fog, inside and out.
She stood shakily, pulling the threadbare cloak tighter, the pendant around her neck swinging forward. It was a tear-shaped stone wrapped in copper vines. It, too, glowed—soft and warm, pulsing in sync with the bark-ring.
"Who… am I?"
She staggered toward the burned-out campfire. Around it: a broken waterskin, a bent spoon, a satchel with nothing inside but dried moss. Her fingers brushed the soot. Still warm.
She wasn't alone last night.
But she was now.
A faint sound behind her—like breath drawn through leaves.
She turned fast.
The forest loomed—trees twisted, their trunks ancient and wide, their roots snarling over buried stones. Eyes seemed to shift in the branches.
But no one stood there.
Still, she felt it.
Something had moved.
She reached instinctively toward the totem at her hip. It felt natural. Like gripping a staff she didn't remember carving.
As if in response, the pendant glowed brighter.
And then… the forest answered.
A faint crack of a branch, then a shape—shadowy, low to the ground—leapt from the brush.
She raised her hand before she could think.
Words spilled from her lips without meaning to:
"Sylvarae'an! Verdra kuun!"
The earth obeyed.
Vines shot upward from the soil, wrapping the shape mid-leap and slamming it to the ground. It screeched—a fox-like creature with too many eyes and a jaw that clicked open sideways.
The vines pulsed once, then dissolved into green mist.
She staggered back.
"What… did I just say?"
The creature snarled and fled into the woods.
She exhaled, slow and shaky, her hand still trembling. Her eyes darted to the vines now fading back into the earth.
She had spoken in Druidic.
She knew magic.
But not her name.
Not her past.
And not why her hand burned now where the vines had emerged.
A low hum broke the silence.
From deeper in the forest—soft at first, then louder.
A melody.
A voice?
She turned toward it instinctively. Not just recognition—but pull.
Someone else was here.
Someone was calling.
She didn't hesitate.
She ran.
Through brambles and roots, mist and moss. She followed the sound until it vanished—replaced by the crashing of water.
She stumbled into a glade carved from stone and found a stream flowing into a small waterfall. At the base: a sword, half-buried in mud, vines curling around its hilt.
And beside it…
A torn scrap of green cloth.
Identical to the one tied around her own waist.
She picked it up, heart pounding.
A voice echoed in her mind—not hers. Familiar. Male.
"We'll meet again by the water, no matter what."
And then, it was gone.
She fell to her knees, clutching the cloth, the pendant, the totem—anything.
Her name—her real name—sat just behind her lips, like a word on the verge of being sung.
But not yet.
Not yet.
From the trees, something watched.
A figure.
Hooded.
Breathing in rhythm with the forest.
And whispering to itself:
"She survived…"